These Scars We Share
by The Batchild
Summary: Edith Shaw and Hercules Hansen have been bruised, battered, and broken since the beginning of the Kaiju War, but they know they can always find comfort in each other. - Snapshots of a relationship forged in war. Part of a fic exchange michaeltdesanta on tumblr. Herc Hansen/OFC.


_I do not own **Pacific Rim. **This fic is part of an exchange with michaeltdesanta on Tumblr, and Edith Shaw is her OC. Enjoy!_

* * *

_September 8__th__, 2024_

"We've got to stop meeting like this, Hansen."

Hercules Hansen looked up at Doctor Shaw, one corner of his mouth twitching like he was holding back a smile. His eyes lit up and Edith felt her own smile spreading across her lips in response. "If you ever left the medbay, we might be able to accomplish that, but as it stands, this is the only way to get your attention."

Edith pressed her lips into a thin line, but her eyes betrayed the lingering smile. She playfully swatted the ranger's shoulder before pulling her chair closer and starting to examine the wound in question on Herc's arm. Her blonde braid slipped over her shoulder as she leaned in for a better look. Neither of them said anything about how long it had been since they'd seen each other, or about how glad they were to see each other again. Neither of them even acknowledged that any time had passed. They never did. They shared another smile and Edith's fingers were gentle on his arm and the silence was comfortable.

"Let me guess," she said after observing the smooth edges and depth of the cut, "Your son wouldn't let the techs do their job again and insisted on fixing Striker himself, and you just had to help."

Herc gave a small shrug with one shoulder. "The left knee joint needed to be fixed."

"Some things never change," Edith said. She narrowed her eyes, but she was smiling again. "At this rate, you and your boy are going to end up nothing but scars."

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, so she settled for an apologetic look, knowing it wouldn't be enough. Herc tried to smile like it was nothing, but he huffed, his face falling into the mask he wore when he was feeling his regret and anger in full force. It was a thin mask, but Edith didn't say anything. She'd been friends with the gruff ranger long enough to know that if he wanted to talk about it, he would start the conversation. He was thinking of the choice he'd made. His dead wife. His hateful son. She also knew there weren't many people he'd talk about his pain with, but she was one of them. They both knew what it was like to lose a part of your family—shared pain drew them together.

In any case, Edith said nothing, and set about cleaning and closing the wound, her eyes firmly on her patient's arm. She pretended not to see the tears in the corners of Herc's eyes.

* * *

_November 15__th__, 2018_

"Welcome to Sydney, Doctor Shaw."

Edith flashed a quick and empty smile at the nurse before her eyes snapped back to the hall of the Shatterdome stretched out in front of her. The building was unfamiliar to her—she'd never been to Australia before—and she was determined to commit the routes through the place to memory. "Is this the way to the medbay?" she asked.

"Uh, we should really head to human resources first—"

Edith shook her head. "I'll head there once I get settled. I need to see where I'll be working first."

"But protocol—"

"Protocol can wait."

The nurse kept her mouth shut for the rest of the trip to the infirmary and the footsteps of the doctor and nurse became the only sounds accompanying the journey.

The infirmary turned out to be larger, brighter lit, and more state-of-the-art than Edith had been expecting, even though less than a year separated the opening of the Shatterdomes in Tokyo and Sydney. All of the equipment still looked brand new. Maybe it had been replaced already. Regardless, Edith stopped in the middle of the room and looked around, surveying her new theatre of operations, her guide watching with nervous eyes. The doctor offered small smiles to the other medical staff present and then started a quick tour of the room, opening drawers and cupboards, trying to learn where everything was immediately.

She'd been that way for the last six months or so, since Paragon Crest, the Jaeger piloted by her siblings had fallen, taking her brother and sister with it. Their deaths, combined with the still-raw ache of her father's demise and her mother's grief, had snapped something inside Edith and she'd thrown herself into her work, eager to help and heal and prevent anyone else from losing their loved ones. Working as incessantly as she could, keeping her hands and mind busy, kept her occupied and distracted. When she wasn't working, she was reading or doing puzzles or walking—anything to keep from being quiet or still, from letting herself slip into the dark recesses of her mind and her grief.

"Doctor Shaw?"

Edith shook her head and found her hands stuck in a drawer full of bandages. She'd paused in her recollection, in her thoughts. The blonde woman withdrew her hands before shoving them into the pockets of her coat and using her hip to shut the drawer. She looked around the infirmary again, like there was something she hadn't seen, and then nodded at the nurse, who sighed and looked visibly relieved to be leading the way to human resources.

They were interrupted before they reached their destination however.

A swarm of people came down the hall, headed towards the medbay, two stretchers in the middle of the madness. Without pausing in her momentum, Edith turned on her heel and followed the stretchers.

"What happened?" she asked the man closest to her when she fell into the mess.

"Who are you?"

"Doctor Edith Shaw. I just transferred from Tokyo. Now what happened?"

The man—someone high up in the military side of the Jaeger Program by the look of his uniform—narrowed his eyes but said nothing else about Edith's identity. "They were testing a new system in the conn pod of the new Jaeger and something went wrong. There was an explosion and both pilots were knocked unconscious."

"Were they testing the Mark V?" Edith asked, looking down at the older man on the stretcher she was walking beside. One side of his head was bleeding, crimson blood soaking his red hair and stubble. He looked pale, and one arm was definitely broken, but he was breathing evenly and his pulse was steady, if a little faint. "This is Hercules Hansen."

"Yes and yes. The Mark V is to be piloted by Hercules and his son, Chuck."

Edith nodded once, not bothering to look over her shoulder at the second stretcher. She hated seeing the rangers hurt, especially the young ones. She inhaled deeply, let the breath out slow, set her mind to the work that needed to be done.

The stretchers were wheeled into the medbay and the room fell into silence as the nurses and doctors began examining the patients. The older Hansen had a concussion and a large laceration in his scalp, but neither was serious. His broken arm wasn't either, since the break was clean. He had three broken ribs on the same side as his injured arm, and several more cuts and bruises. A few of the bruises over his abdomen were cause for concern, but the internal bleeding was minor; if it didn't heal on its own overnight, it would be a simple fix. Chuck Hansen was a little worse for wear. He had a broken arm, ankle, and dislocated shoulder, two cracked ribs and a shard of metal embedded in his side. His body was covered in scratches and bruises and his pulse was weak. The explosion had happened on Chuck's side of the conn pod.

It took a little while, but eventually the Hansen men were stable and under observation and the infirmary was clean and quiet, the din of emergency and immediacy fading.

Edith volunteered to stay and watch the patients while the others rested up and went about their work as normal. Human resources came to the medbay to finalize Edith's transfer and the young doctor settled in an uncomfortable chair to read through the paperwork HR had given her. She broke up the monotony by checking on the Hansen men periodically. Hercules's internal bleeding cleared up about eleven and Chuck's vitals returned to normal shortly after.

It was about midnight when Hercules Hansen woke up. "What happened?"

Edith nearly threw the mound of paperwork all over the floor in surprise. "Fuck!" A rough smile crossed Hercules's face before vanishing in what was probably pain. Edith sat forward and checked his vitals, found them normal. "How is your pain?" she asked, falling into her professional voice.

"Painful. What the bloody hell happened?"

"There was an explosion in the conn pod of the Mark V. That's all I know."

"My son?"

Edith waved away the concern. "He's going to be fine. He was on the side where the explosion originated from, but he's stable now. He's still asleep though."

Hercules huffed and settled back in the bed, Edith's words seeming to relax him. "You new around here? I don't think I've seen you before."

"Spend a lot of time in the infirmary do you?"

"More than I'd like."

Edith smiled, a brief chuckle escaping her lips. There was something about Hercules Hansen, something in his gruff demeanor and his kind eyes—or maybe that just the morphine in his system. She shook her head, corner of her mouth still turned slightly upwards. "I just transferred here, actually. Almost got run over by you and your son on my way down the hall."

"Sorry 'bout that." Hansen shifted about on the bed, took a long drink from the cup of water on the table to his left. "Can I see my son?"

"Like I said, he's still unconscious, and you need to take it easy. You had some internal bleeding. It's stopped, but any movement could reopen the wound. He's in the room next door and I'll let you know if anything changes. You can see him in the morning." For a moment, Edith thought her patient would protest and she narrowed her eyes at him, daring him to test her command. "If I find out you were out of bed, I will dope you to high heaven so you can't get out of bed."

"All right doc. I'll stay in bed until morning."

They exchanged a bizarre sort of smile as Edith got to her feet. She gave another small laugh as she turned and walked from the room. Feeling a connection to a patient wasn't something new for Edith, and she never expected anything to come from them—or for the patient to remember her after the pain meds had worn off—but it felt a little different with Hercules Hansen. There was something behind those light blue eyes of his, something that spoken to the broken and grieving part of her.

She shook her head and informed the night nurse that the elder Hansen's internal bleeding had cleared but he was to stay in bed before she headed for her own bunk to catch a little shuteye of her own.

* * *

_March 2__nd__, 2020_

"Doctor Shaw. Good to see you again."

"Did you plan to greet me in the infirmary again Hansen, or am I supposed to believe this was a coincidence?"

The ranger grunted—the noise somewhere between amusement and pain—and shifted so he was sitting more comfortably on the examination table, the dark, purple, black, and blue bruises more easily visible to the doctor. "Coincidence, I swear."

Edith raised her eyebrows at the ranger, as if saying she didn't really believe him, and then set to examining the injured area. "I know it's been nearly a year since I've been able to treat you—Russia was very cold by the way—but it looks like you saved all your bruises for me. What happened?"

"An accident during maintenance."

"Why did I even ask?" Edith asked around a laugh. "How is the Mark V preforming anyways? I've seen some of the reports on the news. Striker Eureka is a beautiful machine."

Hercules smiled, a small, warm expression reserved only for the place he was connected to his son. Edith and Hercules had spoken briefly about Chuck and what had happened to Angela Hansen, Hercules's late wife, and Edith knew how desperately the ranger wanted to repair his relationship with his son. She also knew how lost he felt when he came to Chuck, and how thankful he was for the chance to drift with his son, to have the connection forged between Jaeger pilots to hold them together.

"She is a beautiful machine," he agreed. "And she's faster than any other Jaeger out there. She's something else."

"Think you could get me into the conn pod for a look around?" Edith asked, only half-joking. "I'd love to see it."

She'd watched her siblings become Jaeger pilots when that was all she really wanted. Her siblings had died and she was dealing with her grief, but the jealously never went away. It was tinged and twisted with disgust at herself for letting the jealousy continue and it ate at her from the inside. She'd wanted to be a pilot more than anything and had been devastated when she hadn't made the cut. Hercules knew that—they'd talked about it several times. Talking with him about her past, about a time she so often tried to forget, made it better. Made it more manageable. But he knew how much she loved the Jaegers and he knew what getting her down there would mean.

"Maybe, but I'm not making any promises."

"What if I fix your leg really well?"

Edith and Hercules were friends, and had been nearly since she'd arrived in Sydney two years before, but she could count the number of times she'd made him smile on both hands and have fingers left over. He smiled then, just a brief curve of his lips around a breath of laughter. It warmed her.

"I'll see what I can do."

She was ecstatic, but she kept it inside, under a tight-lipped grin and a twinkle in her eyes.

Edith's following examination of Hercules's leg was quick but thorough, and she deduced that there was nothing wrong except severe bruising. It was going to hurt like a bitch for quite some time, but as long as he was careful, the injury shouldn't prevent any work or piloting from being done. She did caution him, in her best doctor voice, to try and lay off the mechanic work for a while—let the techs do their job—so as not to put any unnecessary strain on the limb. The bruising was extensive after all, and further trauma could cause further injury.

As Edith was leaving the examination room, Hercules called her back.

"Come down to LOCCENT after dinner and I'll see about getting you down onto the floor if you want."

Edith smiled wide, revealing more of herself than she normally did in the gesture, even to her friends, even to Hercules. "Thanks Hansen."

"Still not making any promises."

"I know."

"And call me Herc."

* * *

_June 27__th__, 2022_

"This is a nice change of pace."

Edith groaned and rubbed at her face, eager to get rid of the offending tears. "I'm not sure I'd say the same thing, Herc." She rolled her head to the side so she could look at the ranger who'd decided to spend several hours sitting with her while the cast was put on her leg. "Just get back to Sydney and I fall and break my leg. Fuck."

Herc put a hand on her arm, gave a small squeeze. "Well I couldn't great you in the infirmary with an injury every time."

Edith laughed, but it sounded a little gaspy and desperate. "I guess that's true."

"How was Alaska?"

"Cold like Russia, but the food was better, and your friend Pentecost is just like you said he'd be. Man knows his shit. Didn't let me get too close to the Jaegers though," she added with a smirk. Her fascination with Jaegers had become a running joke between them.

"Don't tell me you're surprised?"

"Obviously not. Little disappointed maybe, but not surprised."

They fell into a comfortable silence after that as one of Edith's coworkers finished putting the cast on Edith's broken leg. Herc's hand never left her arm and she found herself leaning closer to him. Even though the medication—or maybe because of it—she could feel the warmth coming off him. He'd always run a little hot, even when she'd done the first examination after their abrupt meeting four years earlier. Herc didn't move away. In fact, he brushed a few strands of hair back from her sweaty forehead and looked down at her, his expression curious and comforting, if not exactly reassuring or happy.

Edith took his hand in hers and laced her fingers around his, squeezing gently when the position was satisfactory. He did give her a smile then and moved his chair a little closer to the examination table she was sitting on.

During her last stay in Sydney, two years previous, her and Herc had spent more time together, taking walks about the Shatterdome or what was left of the city when they had the chance. They spoke of their pasts, as much as either of them were comfortable, and shared meals in the comfort of the infirmary, away from prying and curious eyes. They had much in common aside from their scars, from their pain, from what the Kaiju War had done to them. When she was around Herc, Edith was happy, or as close as she ever came.

"Thanks for sitting with me," she said quietly as the doctor left. "Could I impose on you to help me to my bunk?"

As Herc was already helping her off the examination table and onto her crutches, he said, "Of course."

It took much longer than it normally would have, but eventually the paid found themselves standing in Edith's room, the small space crammed full of books and tablets and the paraphernalia of a doctor and of someone enamoured of the Jaegers. The walls were lined with diagrams and blueprints and articles and photographs. Everything had just accumulated over the four years she'd been back and forth between Sydney. Hansen looked around as Edith got herself comfortable in front of the television on the far wall, and then looked at her with something like admiration or amusement or both.

"Do you have to run off or do you have time to sit?" Edith asked tentatively. She didn't want to sit and wallow in her pain by herself. She didn't want Herc to leave.

Without answering, the ranger settled onto the couch beside Edith. He left little space between them. Edith turned on the television and found something diverting enough to let her relax. The morphine helped. It wasn't long before she slipped sideways, her head coming to rest on Herc's shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders to make it more comfortable for the both of them, his hand resting on her far shoulder.

As Edith pulled a blanket over her legs to keep warm as she dozed off, she could have sworn she felt Herc press his lips to the side of her head as he tightened his arm around her, holding her closer. She smiled to herself and curled against the ranger's side.

* * *

_September 8__th__, 2024_

"I'm sorry Herc. I shouldn't have said that," Edith said as she continued to stitch the wound closed. She ran her right hand up to Herc's bicep and gave a small squeeze before returning to her work. "It's been a long day and I wasn't thinking."

He shook his head, used his free hand to wipe the tears away. "It's fine."

"It's not fine."

Edith finished stitching the gash shut and clipped the thread with terse movements. She looked up at Hansen, her jaw working as she tried to find the words. Just over ten years to the day since Angela Hansen had died. Ten years. Six years since Edith and Herc had met and they'd barely spoken about her, even as whatever it was between them escalated, as they took comfort and happiness from the presence of the other. Edith didn't really mind. It wasn't like they spoken at great lengths about her father or her brother and sister. But Herc felt his pain as raw as the day it happened, because he had Chuck and Chuck's anger and the memories passed back and forth between him and his son in the drift. Edith shook her head and began wrapping thick gauze around the wound.

"I am sorry for saying that," she said when she'd finished.

He reached up and cupped her cheek with his hand. "I know."

Edith put her hand over his, slipping her fingers between his. He got to his feet and pulled her with him, wrapping his arms around her in a gesture even rarer than a smile. His superior height allowed him to encase her and, after a moment, she wrapped her arms around him as well, pressed her face into his chest.

"Do you want to talk?" she asked lamely. Lame questions were better than getting frustrated about things no one could change.

Herc shook his head. "Not especially, but I wouldn't mind a walk."

So they started out through the Shatterdome, following their usual paths. They went to LOCCENT, gazed at Striker Eureka out the window, trekked down to the mess hall and snagged a couple of apples. They had the slightly tart fruit as they made their way outside, to one of the observation decks overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the desolation of what had been Sydney's coastline.

"Do you think it'll ever be over?" Edith asked.

"Maybe, but the PPDC, the world is getting impatient." Herc huffed loudly. "They've started building that damned wall, as if that'll keep the bloody kaiju at bay, and they're taking funding from the Jaeger Program to do it. They're talking about decommissioning Striker Eureka."

Edith wrapped her arm around Herc's waist and leaned into him. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She could feel the tension in him, wished she could make it go away. So close to the anniversary of his wife's death and they were talking about taking his Jaeger away from him, and she knew Hansen feared losing his son shortly thereafter. She squeezed him tighter and then moved to stand in front of him, drawing his attention away from the ocean, away from the source of the kaiju. Her hands remained on him, one on either of his sides, sitting at about his ribs.

"I can't take the pain away, Herc. I've never been able to do that, but I'm not going anywhere, okay? Not again."

"Edith…"

"No, listen to me. Whatever happens, I will be here. I know we don't talk about the bad stuff a lot, but I will be here for you to lean on. If they shut down the program, if they take Striker—if the worst happens… I'm not going anywhere. You can not-talk to me as much as you need to."

Herc grabbed her face , a hand on either cheek, and tilted her head up so he could capture her gaze with his. It brought an end to her stream of chatter. For a moment, he remained silent as well, just looking at her, really looking at her.

"I just want to help," she whispered.

"I know."

And he did know. It was why she'd wanted to become a pilot, it was why she'd used her pre-war training and become a doctor in the PPDC. It was why she fought so hard to save everyone who came into her medbay. She'd shoved aside her own pain to help others, so at least there would be a few who hadn't lost their loved ones.

Herc leaned down and kissed her, softly at first, and then harder once she'd overcome the initial shock. A sound like immense relief came from both of them and they sunk into it, holding desperately to each other as if they each were the only thing keeping the other grounded. It might not have been true, but it felt it was in that moment. For years they'd danced around each other, friends, supporting each other, offering comfort, and now, now it was more, as it should have been for a very long time.

The war wasn't over and neither of them knew what was going to happen, not with the kaiju, the Jaeger Program, them, but they knew they'd have each other to get through whatever came.


End file.
